978-1572305441

Justin 37
music, even as a baby, and as a young toddler he listened to his parents’
classical records for hours. The story of his growth and development
has been a major focus of his father’s writings, a way of giving his child
a voice. Today Hikari composes lovely music that is baroque-like, formal,
and classical. The melodies are quite delicate and pristine, usually
consisting of either solo piano or piano and flute. They are light and
airy, without dark and brooding passages. His records have sold extremely
well in Japan and around the world. Like Stephen Wiltshire’s
paintings, his extraordinary perceptual memory and attention to acoustic
detail have allowed his musical talents to blossom even as the capacity
for social relationships and language remain limited. These savants
illustrate in quite dramatic fashion that the flip side of a disability can,
on occasion, release a skill or a gift that is beyond what most of us can
accomplish.
But to be amazed at the ability to calculate birthdays in the year
2050, to make meticulous drawings, or to divide astronomical numbers
in one’s head misses the point. What is so fascinating is the more common
experience of pleasure that perceptual detail arouses in children
and adults with autism and AS. Justin’s acute perception of acoustic detail
and Chris’s attention to visual stimuli aroused by the trees dancing
in the wind are intensely pleasurable—they are experienced as true play.
Without a fully developed capacity for imagination, people with ASD
turn to the concrete world of perception and explore it in all its variety
and in its sameness. The pleasure that it brings is no different from the
pleasure experienced by typical children as they play with toys and
dolls. Even the play of typical children has to be limited and fit into the
daily course of life’s events.
It is the ability to see, hear, and play with the intimate architecture
of the world that is truly amazing. The rest of us can see this architecture
too if we make a conscious decision to look. But we are rarely
drawn to it as a natural affinity. We have to work at it. We have to turn
away from language and from social relationships to see it. People with
autism gravitate to it effortlessly.
* * *
What is going on in the brain that gives rise to these repetitive, stereotypic
interests and activities? What neurological mechanisms are responsible?
Several theories have been proposed, each with both merits
and limitations. One is that people with ASD lack an understanding of